ORD John Russell's removal from the House of Commons leaves no ordinary gap in that powerful assembly. It is the loss of a great historic name, an able constitutional debater, and, with all his faults, a highminded, upright, and honourable statesman. No public man

has been so severely assailed, and none have emerged from the fiery ordeal more unscathed. His slightest errors have been made capital, and his acknowledged political sins have been vigorously denounced. His chief failing has been that of yielding to fear after he had enunciated great principles and indicated a just and true policy, arising very much from that strong constitutional bias which makes him shrink above all things from what he thinks disturbing, or trenching on what he believes to be the balance of the Constitution. He could bring in a bold and highly

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expedient measure, develop and defend it with powerful argument, and after all consent to see it pared down into a good-for-nothing and harmless Act. His opponents very soon found out his weak point, and calculated with certainty on so crippling his Bill in the course of debate that, coming in like a lion, it was likely to go out like a lamb. A memorable instance of this occurred at the time of the Papal aggression in 1850. His letter to the then Bishop of Durham was an eloquent and thoroughly English State Paper. Its effect on the public mind was unprecedented. It roused the dormant Protestantism of the country, and kindled, like the stake of Latimer and Ridley, a light which still burns, it may be with impaired, but we believe with imperishable splendour. In legislating so as to meet that unprincipled invasion of the national and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of England by a foreign priest, he had the whole population at his back; and in case of failure in the House of Commons, he knew that an appeal to the country would have rid him of every opposing or hesitating element, and made him the most popular Prime Minister that ever held the reins. But he quailed before the invectives of the Irish Brigade, the subtleties of Gladstone, and the timidity of the Tories. The result was a measure that neither satisfied the country, nor expressed the Protestantism of the Constitution, nor repressed the pretensions of Cardinal Wiseman. The memorable caricature of the boy that chalked up "No Popery" and ran away was too real. Lord John missed a great opportunity: firmness at the wheel would have steered him to no common victory, and to a name of no common lustre. From that day his star began to pale and his powers diminished, and, in order to escape from the obscurity rapidly settling down on his position as a statesman, he accepted a

second place in that Cabinet of which he had always been the acknowledged and conspicuous chief. He enunciated a true and manly policy, and acquiesced in a diluted and pithless measure. He proclaimed what was the duty of the nation, and consented to pass the compromise of a political coterie. He shut his ear to the demands of the country, and embodied the " uncertain sound" of timid politicians who made him believe their cackling was the voice of the people, and alone would save the capital and the crown. Cardinal Wiseman detested and denounced him for the noble principles he avowed, and cordially thanked him for the convenient and harmless policy into which they were ultimately shaped. Nothing short of his known integrity and highminded character saved him from almost universal dislike.

But the memory of his incidental faults dies out, and the impression of his real worth as a man grows in depth and area. Amiable and spotless in his domestic relations, just and honourable in his public acts, able and accomplished and weighty as a Parliamentary speaker, he will be missed even by his opponents in that House in which he has played so distinguished a part, and by those statesmen who recognize in him the accomplished expositor of the constitution of his country, and even in his errors the most reverent worshipper of all that makes up the glory and the greatness of England.

WOUNDS sometimes ring sweetest in their echoes, and great men speak often most intelligibly by their oracles. Pio Nono at this moment speaks with bated breath. France listens on one side, and Austria on the other. A word that would comfort the one would be sure to exasperate the other. We may therefore expect that his representatives and lieutenants in this country who are out of danger will give us some insight-at least as much as is discreet-into that dark corner of Europe in which shines with flickering light Pio Nono, the worn-out Pontiff. Dr. Cullen, the titular of Dublin and the delegate of the Pope, on his return from Rome, fulminated a Pastoral of rare ferocity on the subject of Italy-a ferocity that the well-known unctuous style of such missives fails to conceal. 66 Piedmont," says Dr. Cullen, "has been for many years the den and refuge of

revolutionists and enemies of the peace of the world." What a pity the infuriated delegate did not say a word. or two on the contrasting happiness of Rome, and the glorious light and liberty of Austria! If liberty has so injured Piedmont, what has slavery, both sacerdotal and autocratic, done for Rome and Vienna? Piedmont is the shelter of the venerable Waldensian Church, and under the ægis of its Constitutional Government the venerable pasteurs have found protection from the fierce proscriptions of Rome; and those grand truths, which for a thousand years have been heard in the caves and among the gorges of the Alps, are now set forth with increasing fervour and growing success in the free air of Piedmont. These are the "revolutionists and enemies of the peace of the world" whose existence Dr. Cullen deplores as a calamity. The Papal delegate will pardon us for accepting such men as the salt of the earth and the lights of the world, and patriots in the noblest sense of the word. Had Piedmont been crushed by the machinations of Rome and Vienna, the only hope of liberty, and light, and safety for Italy had been broken. If Rome now tastes the bitterness of its waters, let her not forget that she let them loose, as in other days, regardless of the most disastrous issues to Europe, if by them she could swell her own pretensions, and secure a few more years of such safety as her miserable existence begs from every country in Europe. The most pathetic part of Dr. Cullen's Pastoral is that in which he expresses his sympathy with the Pope, and his fears for his safety. He is quite sure that a little affliction would do the Pope good, but he evidently dreads an intolerable and overwhelming dose. Lest, however, the Pope's forced silence should be construed by Napoleon as consent, the delegate sends to the Imperial conqueror